Derrick Jensen was a guest on my show Unstacking the Deck, on Humboldt State University's student radio station KRFH Radio Free Humboldt 105.1 FM. Jensen "has been called the poet-philosopher of the ecological movement." Visit DerrickJensen.org to learn more and get his books.

Jensen defined civilization as a way of life with the growth of cities, even part of the word root. A city is a collection of people living in concentrations requiring resource importation. This way of living is unsustainable and must be violence-based since trade is not reliable, if you need it you will take it. Military is needed to get oil from foreign lands. What are we gonna do about that?

Jensen grew up in Colorado, got an degree in mineral engineering physics, but didn't want a wage job life then end up feeling regretting life at 55. He wanted to write going back to school for creative writing. Jensen taught for a few years, wrote tons until he publishing his breakthrough book A Language Older Than Words. He quotes Bertolt Brecht, "Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it."

Jensen's book Endgame asks if people think we'll undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. Most people say no. Jensen wonders what does that mean for your strategy and tactics. People don't talk about it, so we don't know. People delude themselves that something magical will happen. What salmon need to survive is dam removal and a stop to industrial economy, industrial logging, fishing, agriculture, and oceans not to be murdered. People want to save salmon without changing the way of life. “Solutions” take capitalism as a given and the natural must conform.

The environment is #6 on a list of priorities. People focus on short-term issues, primary emergencies, rather than the long-term. Anti-porn activists are white and salmon activists are white or indigenous. Blacks are likely to be police brutality activists.

There is a divide between those who do something and those who do nothing. Institutional change is brought on by force. Bus lines were brought to knees economically by Rosa Parks, didn't change voluntarily.

Jensen has Crohn's disease, a symptom of civilization. His body attacks itself, his doctor describes it as a police riot, ironic considering his politics. Fellow Author Lierre Keith convinced him to stop eating wheat for the benefit of his condition. His doctor would have urged this earlier but said most people do not listen to dietary suggestions.

Cancer, another disease of civilization, kills our loved ones yet we do nothing. We still do not resist. A hypothetical scenario to illustrate our insanity is if space aliens came and destroyed the environment we would likely fight them. Buying CFLs isn't going to solve anything.

I ask Jensen if he thinks it is an act in futility. Most recycling is shipped overseas to places with poor environmental protections and plastics are not made to be recycled. He thinks it is good to do but 1660 lbs of waste is made per person annually, 26 tons including industrial waste. Even a die-hard sustainability activist cannot offset 26 tons. Jensen notes this tricky thing people in power have done, put blame on us for water, gas and waste production. A climate change activist feels bad driving a few hours to visit family which is trivial. People are dying of thirst for cattle raising, Coca-Cola, semi-conductor factories, etc. Golf courses use same amount as people do. Lawns, pools, irrigated alfalfa fields and Las Vegas defy nature when it comes to water. CA-Senator Diane Feinstein even said it's a god-given right to water lawns. Charles Hurwitz did far more damage to redwood forests than somebody with a redwood deck.

Jensen believes environmentalism should be considered a resistance movement. Confront and take down problematic powers. When attending Bioneers he was sadly the only one talking about power or psychopathology. Social change and the culture killing planet cannot be discussed without those factors in mind. If somebody is killing your family is recycling gonna solve anything. The Wintoo, Taluwa, Karuk and Shawnee had millennia old ways of living destroyed by the dominant culture.

Derrick read 1-week of frustrating notes, he gets all the time. Folks saying it is time to do something, like buying composting bin, need to have fun dancing on hallucinogens around fire, or to meditate, reusing thrown away napkins, using little toilet paper, etc. He asks if somebody in 1840 dance naked around fire would it stop slavery? Would meditation do the trick for anti-apartheid activists? These things are fine, but not sufficient!

I brought up how are markets are not free from bailouts to subsidies. Also, suppressed technology, and corporations sit on patents. The illegality of hemp, protected Hearts timber assets, etc. Nikola Tesla could have brought free energy and Stanley Meyer had a water car. Derick noted governments function, providing muscle to privatize profits and externalize costs. To internalize costs the entire structure would change. Exxon destroys the Alaskan coast, we see this all the time. There was once debate after WWII that those over certain net worth could be charged.

Derrick brought up the AETA4, terrorism charges for chalking sidewalk outside the home of a monkey torturer/vivisector. Didn't say kill him. A ton of money was spent for DNA testing while people on death row could be exonerated. A police officer wrote defensively about how he protects people from sociopaths. That is a good thing, but Jensen retorted police forces strikers to terms, not the capitalists. He is not opposed to the death penalty. Some people are scum, like a 35-yr old guy that killed a pregnant 12-year old girlfriend and her whole family. Yet some people poison whole communities, CEO of Union Carbide Warren Anderson killed 8-10,000 people, found guilty with death penalty in absentia. What threatens profit is more of concern than things that threaten lives.

I brought up the documentary Earthlings, which pushed me to vegetarianism. At the time I stopped eating pork learning about Pfisteria, a severely toxic product of that industry. That film-maker points out you can be an economic terrorist for threatening profits. Oprah had massive fallout for attacking the beef industry. Morgan Spurlock's Super-Size Me could be considered terrorism too.

The Corporation documentary featured Measure T in Arcata, which took corporate money out of elections. Henry Adams said “The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved.” The Council on Foreign Relations is a major factor in this relationship. Jensen brought up the concept of if one writes all the ballads, one won't care who writes the laws.

Jensen cites Gerbner's Cultivation Theory, how TV world imposes that a view of reality on viewers, like violence as a social relation. People are trained as minorities/majorities. People like you commit violent acts with impunity. You can see multiple murders in an hour but never see a dead body outside a funeral, let alone a murder. The world is much less violent than we are taught to believe. If you control newspapers you control the spin. Most crime goes unsolved. AETA4 face 20 years for chalking but only 6% of rapists go to jail. Disproportionate penalties, in-flight confrontations can lead to terrorism charges. Yet corporations are evil, psychotic, and narcissistic, corporate persons who live indefinitely.

A Brazilian dictator once said the economy is doing well, the people not so well. The economy is not supposed to be means to an end. It does what it does, enrich rich at our expense. Corporate media preserves these institutions. I note how nuclear satellites that vaporized in our atmosphere are believed to be prime cause for cancer epidemic. I also discuss the book Cradle to Cradle, how products should be made to be re-used. Jensen then talked about language, “we” vs “they.” We aren't making nuclear satellites that fall into atmosphere.

We discuss Obama, who Jensen says is perfect to follow Bush, good cop after the bad cop. Obama is a capitalist who continued to privatize profits and externalize costs, bailouts continue. Not into conspiracy, Jensen says it is clear Obama makes a better dictator than George Bush. A major red flag is saying US troops are not gonna torture, but not talking about extraordinary rendition. He'll talk about closing Guantanamo, not other CIA dark sites. Jensen brought up the secretive Diego Garcia which eludes media coverage.

Discussing the concept of the “start of martial law” being relative to white people when blacks suffer mass incarcerated. Jensen notes the origin of police as patarollers, patrols for slaves. Christian Parenti wrote about when people talk about penitentiaries, need to look at slave camps. More overt fascism. Jensen hopes we collapse like the USSR as a best case scenario, if the US dissolved. In closing I mention the Federal Reserve monetary system, global currency, and the video The Occult of Commerce which ties occult language together pointing out how humans are commodities accounted for by the elite. I end by playing New World Water by Mos Def.

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